“Our Lord invited us to make ourselves ‘at home’ with Him, to remain in Him (John 15:7 MSG). The closest picture I can form of that is sitting with my wife on the back deck on a warm, summer evening or in two comfortable chairs in front of our fireplace on a snowy, January night. The thought of asking her for something is not on my mind. Enjoying her is. The point is being together.”

Questions for Reflection:
• What typically motivates your conversations with God?
• When is the last time you spent time with God for no other purpose than to enjoy being with Him?
• Make space today simply to be present with God.

“If we value our satisfaction in Christ more than Christ Himself, we remain committed to ourselves and not Christ. We may think we’re committed to Him, and in a sense we are – but only as a means to an end. The end is not Christ’s glory; the end is our satisfaction.”

Questions for Reflection:
• If you stop to consider recent conversations you’ve had with God, what has motivated you when you come to Him?
• Are you approaching Him for His pleasure and glory or to gain something from Him?
• When you acknowledge your need to Him, is it from a place of rest in His love for you or an attempt to convince Him to do what you think is good?
• Whatever your motivation has been lately in coming to Him, honestly offering your heart to God and seeking His face, for His pleasure, is your opportunity in this moment.

“Trouble is inevitable. Endurance is necessary. Our high call from God is to trust Him and to trust His heart, a heart filled with love. Nothing can happen to us or in us that He cannot work together for our good.”

Questions for Reflection:
•Do you value endurance as a character trait that God seeks to grow within you because of His love for you?
•How does Scripture link a vision of promised joy with the strength to endure hardship now?
•Take a moment today to offer to God the most painful challenge you are facing, trusting that even it is not something too hard for Him to work together for your ultimate good.

“Does the high calling of God oblige us to trust Him to do a good work – maybe His best work – when we’re enduring hard times? Can we receive the true truth that God is, in fact, doing something good in us and for us during the consequences we live with after a failed surgery, during a frustrating job with no visible hope for a better one, during a season of impending death – and can we receive it as sweet truth?”

Questions for Reflection:
• What is your source of hope during hard times?
• What gifts does God provide to sustain us when we’re enduring seasons of suffering?
• What unshakeable truths remain while we face great loss?
• Take some time today to rejoice in the Truth Who has promised never to leave us and Who is making all things new.

“God has spoken! He has revealed Himself to us. He has made known the larger story that He scripted and is now telling, the story unfolding above the sun. And He has invited us and made it possible for us to celebrate the goodness of the story, a goodness that looks bad to people who see only what is visible below the sun.”

Questions for Reflection:
• In what ways does being fixated on the life you want on earth interfere with your vision of the larger story in which God invites you to participate?
• Take a few moments to ponder and revel in those words: “God has spoken! He has revealed Himself to us.”
• Why does that matter?
• How does your heart value His choice to speak and to reveal Himself to you?
• What opportunity are you being given to respond wholeheartedly to His voice today?

“Without revelation from God, the mystery of His thoughts and ways will forever remain unentered and unknown. And without God’s Spirit opening souls of fallen humans to make them aware of their thirst of God, the mystery will never be attractive. To whatever degree God’s thoughts and ways were seen, human pride would find them of no value. They wouldn’t make sense.”

Questions for Reflection:
• Where are you experiencing friction or restlessness in your life currently?
• What are you wanting God to do for you in those areas?
• Take some time to be still in the presence of God and to offer your heart for His Spirit to engage.
• Beyond what you want from Him, what thirst for Him stirs in your heart?

“If there really is a God, and if the God who is there is the infinite and personal God that Schaeffer sees revealed in the Bible, then it would be reasonable to assume that His ‘above time’ thoughts and ways would make no sense to our ‘time bound’ ways of thinking. Psychological theory, empirical research, and philosophy’s speculation, each done with finite understanding, can never become aware of the story an infinite God is telling….Revelation is required.”

Questions for Reflection:
• Where do you usually seek wisdom to make sense of your life?
• In what ways has God intervened to reveal Himself to you?
• Do you tend to approach Scripture as a means of making sense of your life or as communication from the God Who wants to share His life with you